


Waiting For the Call

by ai_firestarter



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-18
Updated: 2014-10-18
Packaged: 2018-02-21 15:25:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2473136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ai_firestarter/pseuds/ai_firestarter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The number of years they've known each other, LaF should understand that Perry is comforted by facts and figures. It's not that she's allergic to silliness, or recklessness, or wildness. But she knows that is the role LaFontaine plays: LaF draws her out and Perry keeps LaFontaine alive. It's always worked that way. Until now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting For the Call

**Author's Note:**

> Set any time just before or during the "Captive Carmilla" arc.

Keeping things under control is not the same as being controlling. Perry knows this, and Sus-- LaFontaine knows it, or  _ought_  to by now. 

The number of years they've known each other, LaF should understand that Perry is comforted by facts and figures. A neat space and an organised mind. It's not that she's allergic to silliness, or recklessness, or wildness. But she knows that is the role LaFontaine plays: LaF draws her out and Perry keeps LaFontaine alive.

It's always worked that way.

These past few weeks, Perry's losing faith in the magnetic pull keeping them both centred. It seems to be malfunctioning.

LaF is exploring the library after dark, hunting vampires, and using chemicals in her tests that Perry is fairly certain neither of them could afford  _if they sold their parents' houses_. A cacophony of unnecessary risk.

Perry, meanwhile, is paralysed by fear of what LaFontaine's next trick will be, and whether she will return in one piece. Her anxieties stalk her throughout the day, forcing her to freeze mid-sentence in a meeting of the floor dons, or end a sit-down with a student early because she feels a stress migraine coming on. Her heart sits in her chest.

Her mind races, too fast for her to ever catch, with premonitions of hundreds of terrible things. LaFontaine permanently scarred by the library catalogue's tricks, or horribly burned. LaFontaine facing an angry Carmilla, with her alien strength and barely-concealed anger issues. LaFontaine getting herself  _hurt_. Or worse. Any moment they aren't together, Perry is waiting for the call.

All day. All week. Waiting for the call.

And so, when Perry snaps and starts alphabetising LaFontaine's chemicals while frantically humming Disney tunes, and LaF grumbles and decamps to Laura's apartment for more "research", it's only natural that Perry slips down to the floor and starts to weep into her sleeve.

It's not supposed to be like this. They're not  _fighting_. It's worse. They're  _out of sync_.

Maybe irreparably.

Because LaFontaine is never going to hold herself back to make Perry feel safe. And Perry, as much as she'd love to, can't keep herself from predicting the worst.

Her mind flickers to the day when they were eleven, wandering the forest and following the creek. Lola, afraid to cross the creek via the rotted log that Susan declared was perfectly safe. Getting flustered, sharply proposing they go home and leave the creek be.

Susan smirking and practically pirouetting across.

Losing her footing, scrambling to grab the log. Moments from dashing herself against the rocks.

Lola had screamed. It still rang in her ears.

Susan did fall onto the rocks, and dislocated her shoulder. That easy consequence, knowing she could just let it heal and never think about it again, emboldened her. Susan LaFontaine was suddenly invincible. But all Lola could ever thing about was Susan's eyes going wide as she slipped, and the yelp of fear that had ripped from her unbelievably brave best friend.

She never wanted to feel that way again. And now it's everpresent.

She leans her head against the wall and groans. She'd never let LaFontaine see this. Perry never wants to be the reason LaFontaine makes herself smaller. Not again, after highschool when Lola had begged Susan to keep using her "real name" until they escaped to college and could reinvent themselves.

The guilt, of seeing her best friend wince every time someone called her by that name and knowing it was  _her_  fault,  _her_  insecurities, was unbearable.

She knows, sitting here with raw cheeks and heaving chest, that LaF will never know these things. God, please let her never know these things. They are Perry's cross to bear, and bear it she will.

And so she closes her eyes, praying to the God she's not entirely sure she still believes in, and begs for one thing: Keep her safe.

Please.

It's only later that night, when Perry is curled up in bed with a headache, that LaF returns unexpectedly. She'd planned to be in the lab, or at Laura's, all night. And when Perry asks her why she changed her plans, LaF just grins and says something about Nuclear Perry, and Perry laughs for the first time in weeks, and suddenly everything is as it should be.

LaF grasps Perry's hands, her eyes twinkling, and Perry knows they've found their centre again.


End file.
